


Hairline Fracture

by abcooper



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:06:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7027819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abcooper/pseuds/abcooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In response to a prompt on tumblr: <br/>Established supercat - During a heated argument Cat says something that actually really hurts Kara's feelings but Cat's too mad and sees too much red and doesn't even realize how badly she's hurt Kara and Kara just stops arguing and gets really quiet</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hairline Fracture

**Author's Note:**

> this, uh, got away from me a bit. I hope you enjoy, anon!

“Cat, I'm so sorry.” Kara said the moment she heard Carter’s bedroom door close behind him. As soon as she said it, she winced - when Cat was this angry, she hated apologies. She interpreted them as an attempt to escape consequences.

“Yes, you are sorry.” she agreed spitefully now, rounding, and Kara almost took a step back in response to the fury in her eyes. Instead, she called upon her Supergirl confidence to stay in place - if there was one thing she felt sure of, it was that her tentative relationship with Cat could not withstand her giving any ground. Their power balance was too precarious.

“Look, I wasn’t trying to cause any trouble for you. I just couldn’t sit back and -”

“Couldn’t you?? For ten minutes, couldn’t you have remembered you were there as my adult partner, and just sat back and smiled politely?” Cat hissed the words, quieted by the awareness of Carter just a floor away, but no less venomous for it.

Despite herself, Kara felt her temper flare. “Maybe if you’d given me _any_ warning about what I was walking into, I could have been prepared! How was I supposed to react to something like that? Do you really think -”

“You know what?” Cat spit out, interrupting her for the second time in as many minutes, “ You’re right. It’s my fault, really. I did decide to date my _assistant,_ of all people. You were doing exactly what you always do. I’m the one who should have looked past the supergirl glamour and realized i was going to be dating a 24 year old fashion disaster.”

The words hit, and for a moment Kara felt the world tilt beneath her.

2 hours earlier:

“The suggested donation is $100.” the woman at the table told her, and before Kara could stop herself, she gave an audible gasp. The woman’s face said that all her skepticism about Kara had just been confirmed.

“I, uh…. Let me see…” she stuttered, and dug her wallet out of her battered purse. It had the supergirl logo on the side; Winn had bought it for her last birthday as a joke. “I have…. Eighty-four dollars, and, hang on, I think there are some quarters in here….” she gave Ms. Skepticism a weak smile. “I didn’t really know it would be this kind of event, my friend just said ‘children’s fundraiser’, I was picturing juice and cookies, you know?”

“Yes, I can see that.” the woman answered, her eyes lingering disdainfully on Kara’s faded jeans. She was wearing one of those shoulder-padded patterned dresses that old people thought were elegant and that probably cost $800 and that no one under 50 years old would touch with a 10 foot pole. Nothing about her pursed lips had softened in response to Kara’s explanation.

“Well, uh - you said suggested donation, right?” Kara thrust $84 and seven additional quarters into the woman’s hands and ducked around her, deliberately not looking back.

She hadn’t been lying - when Cat had invited her to this, she’d described it as, “Carter’s school is raising some money for their music program. It’s his first time singing in front of an audience, he would like you to be there.” She’d said it in a tone of studied casualness, facing the wall and glancing at Kara out of the corner of her eye, and Kara had interpreted that to mean that _Cat_ wanted her to be there. Their complicated power balance was easy enough to maintain when it was just work and home, but Cat had yet to introduce Kara to anyone in her social circle. This felt like a step forward in their relationship, like Cat was ready to take steps toward publicly declaring Kara her equal.

Entering the room in her faded jeans and button down, Kara had never felt less equal in her life.

Carter’s school auditorium was _elegant._ Where the hell was the budget for this coming from?? When Kara had been in Earth middle school, their idea of really dressing the place up had involved crepe paper! Why were they even having a fundraiser if they had the money to pull off stuff like this?

Ridiculous.

She edged her way through the black tie crowd, aware of the looks and mutters generated by her presence, until she found the silent auction table that she knew Cat had volunteered to run.

“Hey.” she put a tentative hand onto Cat’s shoulder as she came up from behind, and Cat turned, smiling - when she saw Kara’s outfit, the smile took on a fixed quality.

“You’re late.” she pointed out in a low voice.

“I got caught up with… business.” Kara explained, knowing Cat would understand what she meant. Cat’s eyes softened a little. She opened her mouth, and for a moment Kara was certain Cat was about to ask if she was OK -

“Cat! How’s the auction coming along, dear?”

“Elaine, darling!” Cat turned a beaming smile on the woman who had interrupted them. “Do you know, I haven’t had a single bid on the diamond earrings - I think since they were too valuable to put on the table, no one really has a sense of what they’d be getting. You could place a bid and get them for an astoundingly low price.”

Elaine laughed at Cat’s conspiring tone, but made no move to pick up the pen. Instead her eyes lingered questioningly on Kara, who abruptly realized that her hand was still on Cat’s shoulder.

Cat seemed to realize it at the same time. She twisted in her seat to face Kara, casually knocking Kara’s hand away as she did so. “Elaine, this is Kara, my assistant at work and a very dear friend.”

Elaine’s eyebrows raised, and then she gave a tinkling laugh. “I know exactly what you mean, my assistants are my best friends.” she agreed with a smile. Cat laughed, and Kara managed a smile as well, since as far as she could tell she had no superpower for sinking through the floor.

“It’s nice to meet you Elaine. Cat, I think I’d like to find Carter and say hello if there’s still time before he goes onstage.”

“Yes, of course - he’s been rehearsing with the rest of the choir on the 2nd floor, I think by now they’ll be giving them pizza in the music room.” Cat answered, relief in her eyes. Kara fled.

Hearing Carter sing was worth every moment of indignity, just for the way that his eyes sought her out in the crowd, and for the shy pleasure that lit his face when she waved enthusiastically at him.

Despite the judgmental looks she was getting for her outfit, she was ready to write the evening off as a success, right up until the very end.

It was when she was waiting for Carter to change out of his uniform. Cat had gone to the bathroom, and Kara was standing awkwardly on her own in a corner, eager to get home and curl up in bed with her girlfriend, when the conversation caught her ear.

It was close enough that it would have been on the edge of her hearing even without superpowers, and it was impossible to miss with them.

“ - Grant is here with some young blonde assistant that touches her a little too much, if you know what I mean.”

“Not that blonde teenager in the street clothes? Oh dear. Poor Carter… seeing what the parents are like gives you so much insight into the student, doesn’t it?”

Kara saw red. “Excuse you,” she demanded, wheeling on their conversation, “but that’s incredibly inappropriate and rude!!”

The two women - one of whom was Elaine, who’d been so snotty by the auction table - looked extremely startled at Kara’s outburst. So did the rest of the room, which was when Kara realized she may have been a bit loud.

A hand landed on Kara’s shoulder. “Kara, I see you’ve found Elaine again.” Cat said sweetly, and the hand squeezed in warning. “Elaine, darling, I was just looking for you to hand off these auction slips…”

Later Carter caught up with them in the parking lot and slipped his hand into Kara’s and stage-whispered, “did you really scream at my school principal in front of everyone? They’re all talking about it!”

**

The problem wasn’t that they’d had another stupid fight.

The problem was that Cat had meant it.

The funny part was, Kara was almost certain that Cat  didn’t _know_ she meant it. She’d been angry, so she lashed out with something clever and cutting, like she always did. And if Kara asked her whether she’d meant it, when everything was calm and loving, she would say no.

But it was the truth. There was no denying that Cat wanted someone by her side who could be smooth and polished and confident. Someone who could attend fundraisers with her and be well-dressed and look good on her arm. And it had _never_ crossed Cat’s mind that Kara could be those things for her, not before Supergirl had entered the picture.

Kara had made her stuttering excuses to leave - “let’s talk about this tomorrow when we’ve calmed down.” she’d said, and hadn’t really even listened to Cat’s response before she’d left - out the door, on foot. She wasn’t in a mood to be Supergirl.

And now she was sitting in a coffee shop. Not at her own apartment, because Cat might go there, if she was really spoiling for more of a fight. Not at Alex’s, because even the gentlest and best meant I-told-you-so would hurt so much. Not at a bar, because the last time she’d been in a bar, she’d broken bottles and people had been frightened of her, and she kept seeing their faces in her nightmares.

She was at a coffee shop, with dim lighting, and local art on the turquoise walls, and a large hot chocolate with marshmallows in front of her.

It was alright though. She had it under control. She could sit here for awhile and drink her hot chocolate.

A stuttering sob forced its way out of her, and she coughed her hot  chocolate back into the cup.

Gross.

They’d only been dating for about three months, but Kara had to admit that the entire time, it had felt… tentative. Like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Hey, you OK honey?” she looked up to see that the barista was shuffling awkwardly next to her, looking like she didn’t quite know what to do about a crying regular. Kara managed a watery smile at her.

“I’m OK. I think maybe I just got dumped.” saying it out loud made the tears fall faster, and the barista gave her a free cookie and a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. Between it all, Kara was mortified enough to risk going back to her apartment where she could hopefully cry and eat cookies in peace, when her super hearing picked up the sound of screaming, along with an explosive noise that sent her shooting out of her chair and out the door.

At first the collapsed building looked like it could be an accident - a gas leak or something, maybe? Kara was too focused on pulling survivors out of the wreckage to really think about it.

Then something roared behind her, and as she spun to face it a wall of heat slammed into her, forcing her backwards through a wall. She recovered her position, and saw the enormous black…. thing that had gotten her. It roared again, this time she saw the hose of flame released from its mouth and was able to duck left.

So, probably not a gas leak then.

She got grimly to work, but the thing didn’t quite seem to be made of flesh, and her hits didn’t seem to bother it. Neither did her heat vision. Freeze breath it at least noticed, shaking itself in irritation before aiming another blast at her.

Kara was exhausted by the time the thing finally got her pinned, and as it reared back its head to let out a fiery blast, she entertained the bitter thought that at least she probably wasn’t going to have to face Cat Grant at work tomorrow -

“Kara!! Aim for the weak point under its chin…” Alex’s voice echoed in her ear from somewhere nearby and Kara didn’t stop for even a second to question it, just aimed her freeze breath up at the spot she thought Alex meant, and watched as it seemed to cut through the creature like a knife.

She got up to the sound of tentative clapping from a few bystanders, and managed a weak wave, seeking out Alex’s gaze amongst the crowd of medical and military personnel. Alex gestured her over, her brow furrowed with concern, but Kara shook her head and waved again before taking off into the sky.

The cool night air felt good against her skin - she felt lightly sunburned from a blast that would have incinerated anyone else, but it was already healing. That was what Supergirl did, after all - she faced death, and then she shook it off and healed. She felt her phone buzz in her pocket and pulled it out.

The text was from Alex. ‘u alright from that? Check in w me b4 u sleep’ it said, but Kara’s attention was on the photo behind it - a selfie of her and Carter, grinning into the camera with ice cream cones that she had immediately set as her background.

Ice cream and love - were those things that Supergirl did, or things that Kara Danvers did? The differentiation felt stupid - they were just things that _she_ did. But more and more, it seemed like there was a gap between them.

‘I can’t give that up.’ The thought was suddenly very clear - so much simpler than it had seemed over hot chocolate. She wouldn’t give up Carter or Cat for anything, not if she could possibly keep them. And she couldn’t make Cat want her the way she was - couldn’t change Cat into someone who was tolerant of bumbling, who liked pajama parties and messy snacks. She had no power over Cat at all. But if she wanted to keep her, she had the power to change herself.

After all, she was already halfway there, wasn’t she?

‘I’m fine, just tired. Love u’ she told Alex, and changed direction for Cat’s balcony.

  
The lights were off when she slipped silently through the door, and for a moment she thought Cat was already asleep, until she got a bit closer and saw that Cat’s eyes were open, and that she was watching Kara quietly, her face blank, maybe a little tentative. She looked tired and solemn and worth sacrificing anything for.

Kara dropped to her knees next to the bed, putting her face even with Cat’s, and ran a gentle hand through Cat’s hair. “Hey,” she murmured, gentle in all the ways that she knew would relax the tension from around Cat’s eyes, “I’m sorry for earlier. I was out of line. Forgive me?”

“Whatever.” Cat responded after a moment’s hesitation. “Just get into bed.” She rolled over to make room. Kara shed the suit and climbed in next to her, curling up into the warmth of the covers. Cat closed her eyes and made a show of going to sleep, cutting off the possibility of further conversation, but after leaving a few minutes for the sake of plausibility, she gave a sleepy stretch and rolled over, pushing herself into Kara’s embrace.

Yeah, this was worth anything.

Kara curled around her, and let Cat’s scent wash away the smell of burned bodies; let her warmth wash away the cold of death.

**

The next morning felt a little like being in a play. Kara woke to the sound of Cat’s alarm blaring. Abruptly she realized that she was tired from the fight - night fights, with only reflected sunlight, always left her tired in a way that fighting under the sun did not - and her instinct was to wrap her arms around Cat and refuse to let either of them out of the bed for at least another half an hour, tempting her to stay with soft kisses along her neck and shoulders until finally Cat bolted out of bed for the shower, running late.

But there was always a thread of genuine annoyance to Cat’s frantic grooming afterward. Perfection took time, and Cat Grant did not settle for less than perfection. So instead Kara sat up and ran a hand through her hair, smiling blearily at Cat.

“Why don’t you take first shower while I get the coffee going?” she offered, because she couldn’t face even the line at Noonan’s before she’d had a dose of caffeine to her system.

Cat scrutinized her carefully for a moment and then nodded, leaning in to place a gentle kiss on Kara’s lips. “That sounds good.” she answered, pulling herself out from under the expensive duvet in an elegant slide.

Kara stared after her for a moment, pleasure and sadness warring in equal measure. Cat never initiated affection in the mornings - she rolled her eyes and tolerated it. A kiss seemed to mean that Kara was doing something right. Did that mean she’d been doing it wrong all along?

She made the coffee. And then, since her super-hearing picked up stirring in his room, she put on the bacon for Carter, who _always_ had bacon on toast on Thursdays. He appeared just as she was pulling it out of the pan and placing it on his toast, and his eyes lit up when he saw her.

“Kara! I heard you leave last night, I wasn’t sure you’d be here this morning.” Kara winced, because that meant he’d heard them fight, which they _always_ tried to avoid, and pulled him into a light hug.

“Good morning, buddy. We’re all good.” she assured him, and handed off the toast. “You want juice?”

“Yes please - why don’t I get it for both of us?” he offered, pulling two glasses out of the cupboard, and she beamed at him. Whatever she might have gotten wrong with Cat over the past few months, she knew she’d always gotten it right with Carter. That was good. That mattered.

Between them they set breakfast out on the table, and Kara deliberated before limiting herself to four slices of toast and a bowl of the healthy bland granola that Cat ate in the morning. Devouring eleven chocolate chip pancakes might be goofier than New And Improved Kara was aiming for, but she wasn’t going to let herself _starve_. There were limits.

When Cat came down they were all set to eat as a family, a quiet comfortable kind of morning that the three of them were rarely organized enough to have. It was nice, and Carter looked a little like he might start to float from the force of his enjoyment.

Later Kara did the dishes and gave him a hug and waved as Cat ushered him out the door toward the car. Cat let him get ahead of her and then turned back, which was unusual.

“I’ll lock up and see you at work… with your morning latte.” she said, somewhat unnecessarily since it had been happening 2 or 3 mornings a week for the past two months.

“Kara. You know I don’t like to waste time being uncertain or hesitant.” Cat said sharply, and then glared angrily toward her car as she added, “are we…. OK?”

Kara projected all the authority she’d learned from being Supergirl and responded, “of course we are.”

**

It wasn’t like anything big changed. Kara and Supergirl were the same person, after all - it wasn’t as though Kara was _pretending_ to be something she wasn’t.

She was just trying to be a little more adult, that was all. Fast-tracking her own maturity was really a reasonable thing to do, if she wanted to date someone twice her age.

And anyways, there were perks, she rapidly realized. In the first months of their relationship, Kara had initiated almost every moment of affection. She’d told herself that it was because Cat wasn’t used to it, that Cat’s ways of showing affection had always been a little more subtle, but she realized now that she’d never felt _completely_ sure about whether Cat wanted to kiss her, or was merely tolerating it. It had never felt balanced.

Supergirl was not eager with her affection the way Kara was. She came over when Cat invited her, but she didn’t text hints that she wanted an invitation. She didn’t send longing glances Cat’s way during work hours. She didn’t show up with surprise cupcakes and then bounce around like a puppy hoping to be praised for bringing in the paper. She was more on Cat Grant’s level, and that felt good - it felt safer.

Things evened out, over the course of weeks. If Kara saw Cat a little less often, if the moments they spent together were a little less affectionate, she could live with that. The slow-building certainty that Cat _wanted_ the moments they were having, that she wasn’t on the brink of losing everything, was more than worth the trade.

It took about three weeks before Kara heard the shout of, “Kiera!!” coming from Ms Grant’s balcony.

“Yes, Miss Grant?” she asked, because even though they were out of earshot, and even though almost everyone had gone home for the day, Cat had asked that they be professional at work.

 

“Close the door behind you, Kara.” Cat had growled, and the moment the door latched she was on her, pressing her lips against Kara’s with a ferocity that could only be fueled by real desire. Kara had reveled in it - in the certainty that Cat was every bit as invested in the moment as she was.

It was athletic and passionate and a little dangerous, out on the balcony where anyone could catch them, and it was _extremely_ satisfying. If Kara had been human it would have left her with interesting bite-shaped bruises. It wasn’t affectionate at all though, and afterwards Kara would have liked to curl up with Cat in her arms and bask a little, would have liked to turn it from sexual to intimate. But after weeks of practice, she was becoming very good at denying herself those things, so instead she straightened her skirt, and then found Cat’s underwear and made a point of smirking and letting her fingers brush teasingly against Cat’s thighs as she rolled it back on. Then she stood up, ready to return to her desk.

“Kara!” Cat’s voice was sharp, and Kara turned back around. “Is that it? We had our _very_ enjoyable moment, and now you’re just going back to your desk? You’re not going to try to hold my hand, or figure out how to spoon on a couch?”

Cat’s tone was challenging, something shrewd and calculating on her face, and Kara wanted to shake her, wanted to take her by the shoulders and demand _‘what do you want? Tell me and I’ll do it, I’ll do anything, but stop making me guess, because I keep getting it wrong.’_

But even if she didn’t know what Cat wanted from her, she knew a long list of things Cat _didn’t_ want, and that conversation was right at the top. So instead she smiled and said teasingly, “well, I have this really strict boss, you know - she wants those layouts on her desk before I leave tonight.”

Cat laughed, once. “Are you coming over tonight after you satisfy your evil boss?” she asked, and it felt like a reward, like maybe Kara had passed some sort of test, because she hadn’t been invited over in almost a week.

“Sure - I’ll see you there for round two.” she answered, and added a little sway to her hips as she walked back inside, knowing Cat was watching.

She sat down at her desk and finished the layouts and _hurt_ , because if she’d passed Cat’s test, then maybe that was all that Cat had ever wanted out of their relationship in the first place. Sex and fun and convenience and nothing like the affection that Kara had been so eager to offer and ask for.

_This is enough. This is better than nothing, so it has to be enough._

**

She kept repeating the mantra, but somehow the hurt lingered. It was almost a relief when Cat went away for the weekend, attending a very exclusive and important journalism conference on the east coast, and left Carter with Kara.

“This is nice.” Carter said with a shy, sidelong glance after trouncing Kara at mario kart. “We haven’t really had fun together in a while.”

Kara sat stricken for a moment, because god, the _last_ thing she wanted was to start succeeding with Cat at the sacrifice of Carter.

“You’re right.” she said finally. “It has been awhile - I think we better cram in a month’s worth of fun this weekend to make up with it.” Then she reached behind her, and shot him in the head with a nerf gun.

She could balance this, she could make it all work.

On Sunday morning, Kara got up early and made cinnamon rolls. Carter came down the stairs right as she was taking them out of the oven.

“That smells amazing.” he told her, reaching for two plates out of the cupboard.

“Excuse you, who said I was going to share?” Kara teased. She plucked a cinnamon roll off the tray and bit into it, unheeding of the temperature. “Mmm, delicious.”

Carter’s lips twitched, and he made a fast grab for a cinnamon roll, and it was just as well that Kara got the tray over her head as quickly as she did, because they were really too hot to just grab.

Kara was balanced on top of a chair, spewing cinnamon crumbs out of her mouth in helpless laughter as Carter tickled her knees, when she looked up and saw Cat standing in the doorway, suitcase trailing behind her.

Kara had never seen that look on her face before. She stopped laughing immediately, put the tray down on the counter and stepped off the chair.

Carter turned to see what had caused the change in her mood, and grinned in sheer  delight. “Mom!! Kara made cinnamon rolls, but she won’t share.” he announced, and Kara cringed a little, feeling as though she’d been caught red-handed.

“I was just teasing. Plenty for both of you, if you’re hungry, Cat.”

“No, I’m going to go unpack my suitcase. I wouldn’t want to ruin the fun.” Cat answered lightly. Carter looked between them, his face falling, and nothing about it felt like a balance at all.

**

Sunday night was pizza night with Alex. Kara sat on her sister’s couch and ate as many slices as she wanted and was desperately grateful to feel like she was on steady ground after the stilted morning at Cat’s house where everything had felt so wrong.

“Homeland is trash this season, we should find something else to watch.” Alex said, and Kara burst into tears.

“Kara?? What’s the matter?” Alex sounded alarmed, and Kara buried her face in her sister’s shoulder and hung on.

“I have to break up with Cat.” she admitted, muffled into the fabric of Alex’s worn sweatshirt, and she felt her sister’s arms around her as she just gave in and let the tears fall as the whole story poured out.

Afterwards, Alex was silent for a long moment.

“I think you’re right… you do have to break up with Cat.” she said finally. “And I think maybe tomorrow I need to go over there and kick her ass. But, Kara - there’s more going on here than one bad relationship. I think we need to have a long talk, about the way you see yourself, the way you value yourself. I don’t like to hear you talk about yourself like you aren’t worth anything outside of Supergirl, and I - I don’t think that’s just coming from Cat, is it? I think it’s coming from a lot of places.”

“I don’t know.” Kara answered, after a moment of thought. “I know to you it must look like Supergirl is something I just put on recently, but it’s… it’s who I’ve wanted to be for a long time. I don’t really know which parts of me are the costume, and which parts are the real identity. Some days I worry that Kara Danvers is just someone I made up, that she doesn’t really exist at all.”

“Don’t say that.” Alex’s arms tightened fiercely around Kara’s shoulders. “Don’t ever believe that for a minute, Kara.”

She promised Alex she’d be back, and that guarantee of comfort later gave her the courage to fly across the city back to Cat Grant’s apartment.

Usually when Kara came over late at night she slipped through the balcony door and into Cat’s bedroom without knocking, but that seemed inappropriate tonight.  Instead she knocked lightly on the balcony door, hovering until Cat came and opened it.

“Hey.” she murmured. Cat had obviously still been awake - she was in her pajamas, but her eyes were all sharp edges and analysis, with none of the sleepy softness that was there when something woke her up.

“Hey yourself.” Cat answered, and stood back to let Kara in. “I didn’t know whether to expect you back tonight.”  
  
“I, um…. I thought we should talk.” Kara admitted, keeping her eyes on the floor, and there was a long beat of silence.

“You’re here to tell me that this isn’t working anymore, that we should call it off.” Cat said finally, and the thick quality of her voice finally made Kara look her in the eyes.

“Cat, are you crying?”

“I am.” Cat murmured. “Of course I am. I don’t know what I did wrong, but if you tell me, I’ll fix it. Kara please… I don’t beg, but I’m begging now. Please don’t leave me. I know something has been wrong lately. Tell me what you want from me and you can have it.”

“Cat….” Kara tugged gently at her arm to pull her closer, and it was like Cat collapsed against her chest, letting out a sob as Kara held her. “No, Cat, you haven’t done anything wrong, you’re perfect….”

Cat gave a sniff and seemed to bury in closer, wrapping her arm’s around Kara. It was so completely the opposite of how she’d expected the evening to go that Kara was off-balance. She knew that Cat was drawing comfort from her touch though, and she knew that she wanted to touch her. Tentatively she lifted a hand and ran it through Cat’s hair, stroking gently, and then shifted slightly to stroke her cheek, wiping tears away with her thumb. Cat heaved a sigh and leaned into the touch.

“You’ve been pulling away from me for weeks - don’t think I haven’t noticed.” she said after a moment. “I kept telling myself that I just needed to push through it. I thought if I confronted you about it, I’d only be hastening the ending, and I didn’t want that. But I came home this morning, and I saw you with Carter, warm and loving and happy… and I saw the way that ended the moment you looked at me. It was so clear that I’d already lost you.”

“I wasn’t trying to pull away.” Kara answered, and heard how small her own voice came out. “I’ve been trying to be what you wanted, that’s all. You said -” against her will, she wavered a little just repeating it, “you said I wasn’t good enough for you as Kara, and that you wanted Supergirl, and I…. I was trying to be that for you. I was trying to be someone you could take to a fundraiser without getting embarrassed.”

Cat made a slight horrified noise against her.

“Kara, that’s _never_ been what I wanted from you. I don’t think you and Supergirl are separate people. I’m in love with all of you, down to the last hideous cardigan.” She pulled back to look into Kara’s eyes. “Your warmth, and your laughter have shifted my entire world. I have loved every moment of the way you have loved me.”

“Cat…” Kara trembled a little. Cat was looking up at her with teary eyes, and all she wanted to do was pull her in and kiss her and let everything be alright again. But…

“I love you so much,” she murmured, and kissed Cat gently on the forehead. “And I’m not breaking up with you, and we’re going to work this out. But there _are_ things we need to work out.” she took a deep breath and a step back, because she needed a little more space and courage to admit, “I’ve been unhappy. When you said that Kara Danvers  wasn’t what you wanted, it - it was just a confirmation of everything I was already thinking. There are things about our relationship that need to change. There are - there are things about the way that I see myself that _I_ need to learn how to change.”

Cat nodded, and reached out for her hand. “Alright. Let’s talk about it.”


End file.
